Chapter Seven
"When I was a lad living in England my mother raised me by herself. My father was a merchant, and after my mothers death I came here seeking him."
"Where's this going boy?" Jack asked, jealous of Will's childhood, she herself had no such happy memories.
"His name was Will Turner. I'm no simpleton Jack, it was only after you learned my name that you agreed to help. Since that's what I wanted I didn't press the matter. You knew my father."
"Aye, I knew 'im. I was probably one of the few that knew him as Will. The rest of the crew called him Bootstrap Bill. Good man, good pirate. You look a fair bit like 'im."
"That's a lie. My father was a respectable man who followed the law. A merchant." Will said, bristling in anger.
"He was a bloody pirate, a scallywag." Jack said with fond memories.
"Take that back!" Will shouted, raising his sword to Jack's chest.
"No qualms about raising a sword to a woman now eh? Put it away son. Ye don't want to be beaten again." Jack told him, rolling her darkly outlined eyes.
"You did not beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight I would have killed you."
"Well that's no incentive for me to fight fair then boy, is it?" Jack said with a cocky smile.
"Stop calling me boy! I highly doubt you're older than me!" Will said with indignation.
"Aye, but I'm wiser." Jack retorted, swinging the sail around in the blink of an eye so that the yard caught Will and held him out over the sea.
Will struggled, frustrated as Jack looked him straight in the eye and made her speech.
"As long as you're just hanging in there, pay attention. The only rules that really matter are these- what a person can do and what they can't. For instance- you can accept your father was a good man and a pirate, or ye can't. But pirate is in yer blood, and ye'll have to come to terms with that someday luv. And me for example, I can let ye drown, but I can't bring the ship into Tortuga all by my onesies, savvy? So."
At this point Jack swung him back onto deck.
"Can ye sail under the command of a pirate luv?" Jack questioned, looking down at the handsome young man.
The sight of her above him, so powerful and fierce and free, quickened his pulse. He envied her; she was not bound as he was. One of her dark curls slipped from under her hat, waving in the wind. Reaching up on impulse he pulled her hat off, releasing her long hair. She looked puzzled at this movement.
"Why'd ya do that luv?"
"Just checking." He smiled softly.
"Checking what?"
"That it wasn't just a dream."
She was silenced for a moment, the wind tugging at her hair.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?"
"Will ya be sailing with me boy? Or is the famous Captain Jack Sparrow going to have to manage this ship by herself?"
Will got up, dusting himself off.
"I'll sail with you. But you must stop calling me boy. How old are you anyway?"
She paused a moment before answering him, weighing the matter on her mind.
"16."
"Your only 16? I'd thought you were at least my age!." Will laughed, realizing the pirate was two years younger than him.
"Well, like I said, I'm definitely wiser than ye." The disgruntled pirate replied.
"Hang on. the stories about you date back for years more than 16." Will said.
"Aye, I share my name with my late father." Jack replied, her face clouded with bitter memories.
"How is it you knew my father than? Even I barely knew him."
"Because he sailed on the ship I grew up on." Jack said, her tone growing sour.
"Tell me about him. Tell me how you got onto his ship." Will said, desperate for knowledge about the father he never knew.
"Nay. I'll not be dragging the past up yet." Jack said, effectively finishing the conversation.
"Well at least tell me where we're headed."
"Tortuga. We need to pick up a crew if we're to chase the Black Pearl."
~~~
Elizabeth sat on the bed in the small, stuffy cabin, full of rage. They were keeping her, the governor's daughter, in a dirty cabin, treating her with no respect. She jumped up with a start when Pintel and Raggeti entered her room.
"The captain wants you to put this on. Ye'll be dining with em." Pintel demanded gruffly.
"Tell him I'm disinclined to acquiesce to his request." She replied haughtily.
"He said you'd say that. He also said that if ye weren't eating with him you'd be eatin' with the crew. Naked."
With a snatch she grabbed the black dress, changed and made her way through the hall to the captain's private quarters, muttering obscenities as she went. When she entered the room her eyes fell upon a succulent roast pig, bowls of fruit and huge dishes of bread. Perhaps they were aware of her position after all; they had prepared her a feast complimentary of her noble birth. She began to eat daintily, not noticing that the captain himself ate nothing.
"There's no need to stand on ceremony, nor call to impress anyone. Ye must be hungry." He finally said, watching her eat with interest.
"No need to impress anyone indeed. Certainly not filthy pirates." Elizabeth replied scathingly, digging into the food using her fingers now, and eating greedily.
"Try the wine." Barbossa said, passing her a goblet. "And the apples, one of those next."
"It's poisoned!" She said suspiciously.
"There would be no sense in killing ye, Miss Turner."
"Then release me! You have your trinket; you have no further value for me."
"Ye have no idea what this is, do ye?" Barbossa asked, taking out the medallion and strolling over to the pet monkey in the corner of the room.
"It's a pirate medallion." Elizabeth replied, as if that were obvious.
"This is Aztec gold." Barbossa began in a chilling tone. "One of 882 identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortez himself. Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wrecked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortez was insatiable, so the heathen gods placed upon the chest a terrible curse. Any mortal that remove but a piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."
"I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa." Elizabeth replied in a sardonic tone.
"Aye, that's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale. Buried on an island that cannot be found except for those who know where it is. Find it, we did. There be the chest, and inside it be the gold, and we took them all. Spent and traded them all, frittered them away on food and drink and pleasurable company. The more we gave them away the more we realized - the drink would not satisfy, the food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. Compelled by greed we were, and now consumed by it. We are cursed men Miss. Turner. There is one way we can end our curse, all the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be found and the blood repaid. Thanks to ye we have the final piece."
"And the blood to be repaid?" Elizabeth asked, despite her resolution not to be drawn into the story.
"That's why there's no sense to be killing you.yet." Barbossa replied menacingly.
"I won't sit here and listen to this nonsense a moment longer!" Elizabeth answered indignantly.
She stormed out onto deck only to see the crew replaced by working, moving, jeering skeletons. She screamed with horror, her blood pounding in her ears as she looked into the bustle of bones and rags, talking and working like ordinary men.
"The moonlight shows us for what we really are!" Barbossa declared. "We are not among the living and so cannot die, yet we are not dead! For too long I've had a thirst I'm unable to quench. Too long I've been starving and not yet died. I feel nothing, not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh."
Barbossa strode out of the cabin doorway, his monkey following him. Both turned to still rotting corpses in the pale moonlight.
"Ye best start believing in ghost stories Miss. Turner. You're in one!"
Taking a bottle of wine he drank, the red liquid pouring out through his ribs and onto the deck of the ship. Enjoying seeing Elizabeth run into the cabin, away from the horror, he burst into a deathly laugh. His crew joined him, white jawbones leering manically in the moonlight.
"What ye all think ye're doing? Get back to work!"
~~~
"It's a sad man that ain't never breathed the sweet bouquet that is Tortuga, savvy? What do ye think lad?" Jack said on their arrival in the infamous pirate port.
Staring at the whores, drunks and bottles that littered the streets of the port, will decided that perhaps the man who had never been here was a lucky one.
"It'll linger." He replied.
A blonde-haired woman strode right up to Jack and slapped her.
"I didn't deserve that." She muttered to will.
"That was for causing all my customers to fall in love with you!" the whore said.
"Listen darling, I'm no whore, I ain't never made eyes at any man, let alone one of those rats you associate yerself with." Jack replied, looking outraged at the idea that she could have been mistaken for a whore.
"I never said you sleep with any of them. But these men don't want ladies now, they want pirate captains! They want you because they can't have ye! You're ruining business for everyone."
"It's not my fault they love me darling. Maybe you're just not good enough." Jack sneered.
The whore stalked off in an angry rage, upset at her words.
"The men love you?" Will asked incredulously.
"Can't see why mate." Jack said, sounding for once less than arrogant.
"I can." Will whispered, but Jack had already moved on, wandering towards a pig sty in the corner of the street.
It was easy to see the men would love the pirate, especially dressed as she was now, in somewhat tighter breeches than those he had first seen her, her off-white shirt a better fit than before and her long, dark hair hanging free to her waist until she found another bandanna. Jack interrupted his train of thought, probably a good thing too, Will decided, when she threw a bucket of water over a sleeping figure in the outskirts of the pig run.
"Curse ye for breathing, ya slack-jawed idiot! Mother's love! It's Jacqueline!" the man cried, sitting up and realizing who had caused his rude awakening. "Don't you know it's bad luck to wake a man when he's sleepin'?"
"Ah, fortunately I know how to counter it Gibbs. The woman who did the waking buys the man who was asleep a drink. The man who was asleep drinks it while listening to a proposition from the woman who did the waking." Jack said, speaking in riddles.
"Aye, that'll do it." Gibbs agreed, cheering up at the mention of drink.
Will spotted another bucket of water and threw it over the sopping man, deciding it was time he took part in the action.
"Blast! I'm awake!"
"That was for the smell." Will stated a matter-of-factly, a cheeky grin crossing his handsome features.
Jack grinned back at him, amazed at the young mans change of spirits. Something in her grin made her heart ache, for the life she had years ago and for.. Something she could not, did not want to name.
They made their way to a tavern, Jack and Gibbs sliding into a booth while Will kept a 'sharp eye out', as instructed.
"Now, what's the nature of this venture of yours?" Gibbs asked, settling down with his ale.
"I'm going after the Black Pearl." Jack said, ignoring Gibbs who had just chocked on his drink. "I know where it's going to be and I'm going to take it."
"Jack, it's a fool's errand. Why, ye know better than me the tales of the Black Pearl."
"Which is why I know what Barbossa's up to. all I need is a crew."
"From what I hear of Barbossa he's not a man to tolerate fools, let alone strike a deal with one."
"Then I say it's a good thing I'm not a fool then, aye?"
"Prove me wrong mate. What makes you think Barbossa's gonna give u this ship of his?"
"Let's just say it's a matter of leverage, aye?" Jack said, nodding at Will, who was positioned a few meters away, out of earshot.
Or so Jack thought. After several attempts at subtly motioning at Will, Gibbs caught on.
"The kid?"
Strange, though Jack, that they should think of Will as a child when Jack herself was two years younger than him.
"That is the only child of Bootstrap Bill Turner, savvy?"
"Is he now? Leverage says you, I feel a change in the wind says I. I'll find us a crew. There's bound to be some sailors on this rock as crazy as you."
"One can only hope. Take what you can." She said, toasting Gibbs.
"Give nothing back!" He finished, as they slammed down their cups with a thud.
Will sighed, turning away from the two pirates. Unknown to them, he'd heard every word of their little agreement. He felt disappointed. That was all he was. Leverage. Here he had been, acting like a fool, beginning to care for the beautiful woman. Possibly even falling for her. Well, that's what you got for trusting a pirate, he reminded himself. Especially Jack Sparrow.
~~~
"When I was a lad living in England my mother raised me by herself. My father was a merchant, and after my mothers death I came here seeking him."
"Where's this going boy?" Jack asked, jealous of Will's childhood, she herself had no such happy memories.
"His name was Will Turner. I'm no simpleton Jack, it was only after you learned my name that you agreed to help. Since that's what I wanted I didn't press the matter. You knew my father."
"Aye, I knew 'im. I was probably one of the few that knew him as Will. The rest of the crew called him Bootstrap Bill. Good man, good pirate. You look a fair bit like 'im."
"That's a lie. My father was a respectable man who followed the law. A merchant." Will said, bristling in anger.
"He was a bloody pirate, a scallywag." Jack said with fond memories.
"Take that back!" Will shouted, raising his sword to Jack's chest.
"No qualms about raising a sword to a woman now eh? Put it away son. Ye don't want to be beaten again." Jack told him, rolling her darkly outlined eyes.
"You did not beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight I would have killed you."
"Well that's no incentive for me to fight fair then boy, is it?" Jack said with a cocky smile.
"Stop calling me boy! I highly doubt you're older than me!" Will said with indignation.
"Aye, but I'm wiser." Jack retorted, swinging the sail around in the blink of an eye so that the yard caught Will and held him out over the sea.
Will struggled, frustrated as Jack looked him straight in the eye and made her speech.
"As long as you're just hanging in there, pay attention. The only rules that really matter are these- what a person can do and what they can't. For instance- you can accept your father was a good man and a pirate, or ye can't. But pirate is in yer blood, and ye'll have to come to terms with that someday luv. And me for example, I can let ye drown, but I can't bring the ship into Tortuga all by my onesies, savvy? So."
At this point Jack swung him back onto deck.
"Can ye sail under the command of a pirate luv?" Jack questioned, looking down at the handsome young man.
The sight of her above him, so powerful and fierce and free, quickened his pulse. He envied her; she was not bound as he was. One of her dark curls slipped from under her hat, waving in the wind. Reaching up on impulse he pulled her hat off, releasing her long hair. She looked puzzled at this movement.
"Why'd ya do that luv?"
"Just checking." He smiled softly.
"Checking what?"
"That it wasn't just a dream."
She was silenced for a moment, the wind tugging at her hair.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?"
"Will ya be sailing with me boy? Or is the famous Captain Jack Sparrow going to have to manage this ship by herself?"
Will got up, dusting himself off.
"I'll sail with you. But you must stop calling me boy. How old are you anyway?"
She paused a moment before answering him, weighing the matter on her mind.
"16."
"Your only 16? I'd thought you were at least my age!." Will laughed, realizing the pirate was two years younger than him.
"Well, like I said, I'm definitely wiser than ye." The disgruntled pirate replied.
"Hang on. the stories about you date back for years more than 16." Will said.
"Aye, I share my name with my late father." Jack replied, her face clouded with bitter memories.
"How is it you knew my father than? Even I barely knew him."
"Because he sailed on the ship I grew up on." Jack said, her tone growing sour.
"Tell me about him. Tell me how you got onto his ship." Will said, desperate for knowledge about the father he never knew.
"Nay. I'll not be dragging the past up yet." Jack said, effectively finishing the conversation.
"Well at least tell me where we're headed."
"Tortuga. We need to pick up a crew if we're to chase the Black Pearl."
~~~
Elizabeth sat on the bed in the small, stuffy cabin, full of rage. They were keeping her, the governor's daughter, in a dirty cabin, treating her with no respect. She jumped up with a start when Pintel and Raggeti entered her room.
"The captain wants you to put this on. Ye'll be dining with em." Pintel demanded gruffly.
"Tell him I'm disinclined to acquiesce to his request." She replied haughtily.
"He said you'd say that. He also said that if ye weren't eating with him you'd be eatin' with the crew. Naked."
With a snatch she grabbed the black dress, changed and made her way through the hall to the captain's private quarters, muttering obscenities as she went. When she entered the room her eyes fell upon a succulent roast pig, bowls of fruit and huge dishes of bread. Perhaps they were aware of her position after all; they had prepared her a feast complimentary of her noble birth. She began to eat daintily, not noticing that the captain himself ate nothing.
"There's no need to stand on ceremony, nor call to impress anyone. Ye must be hungry." He finally said, watching her eat with interest.
"No need to impress anyone indeed. Certainly not filthy pirates." Elizabeth replied scathingly, digging into the food using her fingers now, and eating greedily.
"Try the wine." Barbossa said, passing her a goblet. "And the apples, one of those next."
"It's poisoned!" She said suspiciously.
"There would be no sense in killing ye, Miss Turner."
"Then release me! You have your trinket; you have no further value for me."
"Ye have no idea what this is, do ye?" Barbossa asked, taking out the medallion and strolling over to the pet monkey in the corner of the room.
"It's a pirate medallion." Elizabeth replied, as if that were obvious.
"This is Aztec gold." Barbossa began in a chilling tone. "One of 882 identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortez himself. Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wrecked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortez was insatiable, so the heathen gods placed upon the chest a terrible curse. Any mortal that remove but a piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."
"I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa." Elizabeth replied in a sardonic tone.
"Aye, that's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale. Buried on an island that cannot be found except for those who know where it is. Find it, we did. There be the chest, and inside it be the gold, and we took them all. Spent and traded them all, frittered them away on food and drink and pleasurable company. The more we gave them away the more we realized - the drink would not satisfy, the food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. Compelled by greed we were, and now consumed by it. We are cursed men Miss. Turner. There is one way we can end our curse, all the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be found and the blood repaid. Thanks to ye we have the final piece."
"And the blood to be repaid?" Elizabeth asked, despite her resolution not to be drawn into the story.
"That's why there's no sense to be killing you.yet." Barbossa replied menacingly.
"I won't sit here and listen to this nonsense a moment longer!" Elizabeth answered indignantly.
She stormed out onto deck only to see the crew replaced by working, moving, jeering skeletons. She screamed with horror, her blood pounding in her ears as she looked into the bustle of bones and rags, talking and working like ordinary men.
"The moonlight shows us for what we really are!" Barbossa declared. "We are not among the living and so cannot die, yet we are not dead! For too long I've had a thirst I'm unable to quench. Too long I've been starving and not yet died. I feel nothing, not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh."
Barbossa strode out of the cabin doorway, his monkey following him. Both turned to still rotting corpses in the pale moonlight.
"Ye best start believing in ghost stories Miss. Turner. You're in one!"
Taking a bottle of wine he drank, the red liquid pouring out through his ribs and onto the deck of the ship. Enjoying seeing Elizabeth run into the cabin, away from the horror, he burst into a deathly laugh. His crew joined him, white jawbones leering manically in the moonlight.
"What ye all think ye're doing? Get back to work!"
~~~
"It's a sad man that ain't never breathed the sweet bouquet that is Tortuga, savvy? What do ye think lad?" Jack said on their arrival in the infamous pirate port.
Staring at the whores, drunks and bottles that littered the streets of the port, will decided that perhaps the man who had never been here was a lucky one.
"It'll linger." He replied.
A blonde-haired woman strode right up to Jack and slapped her.
"I didn't deserve that." She muttered to will.
"That was for causing all my customers to fall in love with you!" the whore said.
"Listen darling, I'm no whore, I ain't never made eyes at any man, let alone one of those rats you associate yerself with." Jack replied, looking outraged at the idea that she could have been mistaken for a whore.
"I never said you sleep with any of them. But these men don't want ladies now, they want pirate captains! They want you because they can't have ye! You're ruining business for everyone."
"It's not my fault they love me darling. Maybe you're just not good enough." Jack sneered.
The whore stalked off in an angry rage, upset at her words.
"The men love you?" Will asked incredulously.
"Can't see why mate." Jack said, sounding for once less than arrogant.
"I can." Will whispered, but Jack had already moved on, wandering towards a pig sty in the corner of the street.
It was easy to see the men would love the pirate, especially dressed as she was now, in somewhat tighter breeches than those he had first seen her, her off-white shirt a better fit than before and her long, dark hair hanging free to her waist until she found another bandanna. Jack interrupted his train of thought, probably a good thing too, Will decided, when she threw a bucket of water over a sleeping figure in the outskirts of the pig run.
"Curse ye for breathing, ya slack-jawed idiot! Mother's love! It's Jacqueline!" the man cried, sitting up and realizing who had caused his rude awakening. "Don't you know it's bad luck to wake a man when he's sleepin'?"
"Ah, fortunately I know how to counter it Gibbs. The woman who did the waking buys the man who was asleep a drink. The man who was asleep drinks it while listening to a proposition from the woman who did the waking." Jack said, speaking in riddles.
"Aye, that'll do it." Gibbs agreed, cheering up at the mention of drink.
Will spotted another bucket of water and threw it over the sopping man, deciding it was time he took part in the action.
"Blast! I'm awake!"
"That was for the smell." Will stated a matter-of-factly, a cheeky grin crossing his handsome features.
Jack grinned back at him, amazed at the young mans change of spirits. Something in her grin made her heart ache, for the life she had years ago and for.. Something she could not, did not want to name.
They made their way to a tavern, Jack and Gibbs sliding into a booth while Will kept a 'sharp eye out', as instructed.
"Now, what's the nature of this venture of yours?" Gibbs asked, settling down with his ale.
"I'm going after the Black Pearl." Jack said, ignoring Gibbs who had just chocked on his drink. "I know where it's going to be and I'm going to take it."
"Jack, it's a fool's errand. Why, ye know better than me the tales of the Black Pearl."
"Which is why I know what Barbossa's up to. all I need is a crew."
"From what I hear of Barbossa he's not a man to tolerate fools, let alone strike a deal with one."
"Then I say it's a good thing I'm not a fool then, aye?"
"Prove me wrong mate. What makes you think Barbossa's gonna give u this ship of his?"
"Let's just say it's a matter of leverage, aye?" Jack said, nodding at Will, who was positioned a few meters away, out of earshot.
Or so Jack thought. After several attempts at subtly motioning at Will, Gibbs caught on.
"The kid?"
Strange, though Jack, that they should think of Will as a child when Jack herself was two years younger than him.
"That is the only child of Bootstrap Bill Turner, savvy?"
"Is he now? Leverage says you, I feel a change in the wind says I. I'll find us a crew. There's bound to be some sailors on this rock as crazy as you."
"One can only hope. Take what you can." She said, toasting Gibbs.
"Give nothing back!" He finished, as they slammed down their cups with a thud.
Will sighed, turning away from the two pirates. Unknown to them, he'd heard every word of their little agreement. He felt disappointed. That was all he was. Leverage. Here he had been, acting like a fool, beginning to care for the beautiful woman. Possibly even falling for her. Well, that's what you got for trusting a pirate, he reminded himself. Especially Jack Sparrow.
~~~